Gerrard Cowan - The Strategist

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2017

Copyright © Gerrard Cowan 2017

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2017.

Cover image © Shutterstock.com

Gerrard Cowan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008121822

Version: 2017-08-09

For my parents, Marie and Ronnie, and my sister, Rosaleen

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page The Strategist GERRARD COWAN

Copyright HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2017 Copyright © Gerrard Cowan 2017 Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2017. Cover image © Shutterstock.com Gerrard Cowan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress. Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008121822 Version: 2017-08-09

Dedication For my parents, Marie and Ronnie, and my sister, Rosaleen

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

About the Author

Also by Gerrard Cowan

About the Publisher

‘What is the Machinery?’ the man asked.

There was silence for a moment, and then a great sigh, somewhere far away.

The man opened his eyes, to a black, starless expanse. He was alone, held up by invisible strings: a puppet in the abyss.

The man flexed his fingers. He reached up to his face, felt the stubble, and confirmed he was what he had always been: Charls Brandione. A physical being. Not a nothing.

He looked into the dark, and searched for her.

The Dust Queen.

‘Ask me another question,’ she said.

It was strange, that voice of hers: three people speaking at once, and one voice from three mouths. He sensed she was impatient, and the thought sent a spasm of laughter through him. How could he hold such power over her ?

He turned his head, focused on another stretch of darkness. She had taken him here before, many times. What was this place? It was a void, yet there was something there, in the darkness: a deep intelligence, like that of the Queen, but older even than her, its thoughts stretching across age after age. He could feel it. He could hear the whispers of its greatness. There was a conflict within this unknowable mind; he could taste it.

The darkness changed. Three sets of unblinking eyes appeared before him.

‘Ask me another question.’ The eyes narrowed. He could ignore her no longer. But only one question ever came to mind. It was a question she would not answer, but it mattered more than anything else. Everything was tied up with it: the old world and whatever had taken its place; the rules they lived by, all their fears and dreams.

‘What is the Machinery?’

The eyes blinked.

**

He was back in his tent.

No: not tent. He had been in many tents before, in the wars. The wars, the wars, the endless wars, now a bloody dream. This was a great hall, a monstrosity of flowing silk, dyed into violent shades of red and gold. In the centre stood a magnificent table, covered with maps of the Machinery knew where and bowls of fruit in a riot of colours. Candles burned on thick iron stands, and a gigantic bed dominated one wall. Along another was a series of wooden shelves, groaning with incomprehensible books. Brandione sat at a gleaming mahogany desk, the knobs on its drawers shaped into likenesses of his own face. In a corner was a bust of the Queen, or rather three busts growing from one base, staring at him with wicked intent.

Wayward was standing before him, smiling his usual smile. Tonight he wore a velvet coat of dark purple; shreds of cloth of the same colour were threaded through the braids of his hair.

Brandione turned his gaze to the entrance, a flapping segment of parchment. Outside, the sand was cold and blue in the moonlight. There was a desert, there. Was it the Wite? He did not know. Questions, Wayward, and the tent. That’s all there is. Questions, Wayward, and the tent.

‘You were gone for a long time,’ Wayward said.

His accent was familiar to Brandione, echoing with the heavy cadences of the South. My old home, in an old land. But it could not be so, for Wayward was surely an ancient thing. Perhaps he alters his voice to put his companions at ease.

Brandione shrugged. ‘No longer than usual.’ He looked down at the desk, and saw that his hands were intertwined. There was a small scar on his thumb from some unknown wound. For a moment he was jolted back to reality, to his old self: the commander of the armies of the Overland. But those days were gone, now. He was no longer a General. What are you, then?

‘You are the soldier and the scholar,’ Wayward whispered.